RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



the feat described above in such artistic form as 

 leads one to beHeve that, like Pegasus, the 

 creature has wings at every heel. No man who 

 has followed hounds in Meath, Kilkenny, or 

 Kildare will ever forget the first time, when, to 

 use the vernacular of those delightful countries, 

 he rode "an accomplished hunter over an 

 intricate lep ! " 



But the merit is not heaven -born. On the 

 contrary, it seems the result of patient and 

 judicious tuition, called by Irish breakers 

 "training," in which they show much knowledge 

 of character and sound common-sense. 



In some counties, such as Roscommon and 

 Connemara, the brood mare indeed, with the 

 foal at her foot, runs wild over extensive districts, 

 and, finding no gates against which to lean, leaps 

 leisurely from pasture to pasture, pausing, perhaps, 

 in her transit to crop the sweeter herbage from 

 some bank on which she is perched. Where 

 mamma goes her little one dutifully follows, 

 imitating the maternal motions, and as a charming 

 mother almost always has a charming daughter, 

 so, from its earliest foalhood, the future hunter 

 acquires an activity, courage, and sagacity that 

 shall hereafter become the admiration of crowded 

 huntinof-fields in the land of the Saxon far, far 

 away ! 



But whereas in many parts of Ireland improved 

 140 



